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Pat Rabbitte

There’s two types of medicine – medicine that works, and medicine that don’t work. Just like there’s two types of doctors – the medical doctors, and the others.

When I fell off the pylon trying to rescue the cat, I landed on my back, but shoulder first, with an awful clatter. The shaggin pain was brutal altogether. So I went to the hospital to see one of these chiropractors, I think it was. I waited in the sitting room for over two hours, with your wan in the other chair moanin about her neck and giving me the eye, and me getting water in them little plastic cups, splashin all over her dress like. When it wasn’t her the other old wan was dropping her cane, and me with the back having to pick it up. The other fella in there was texting fit to bust, probably to himself, just to keep his head down and ignore all around him. That left me to act the eejit to your two’s every wish.

Finally I was called into the Palace of Pain, with a hundred certificates on the wall, probably from the University of Lower Mississippi or just printed off Google Images – how would you know? Your man hummed and hawed for five minutes, made me take my shirt off and put it on again, and showed me a picture of a skeleton with scary eyeballs. That was it. He sent me on my way with a prescription for painkillers with a price so dear I said feck that and got three bottles of Paddy for the same money. Best feckin painkiller I know. If youre gonna cover the pain rather than fix the problem, at least make it taste good.

But of course when the Paddy ran dry, the pain was back, and I was dying, no two ways about it.

Peig is wicked into this ‘alternative medicine’, which is funny given her time at med school. I don’t go in for the crystals and the fairies at the bottom of the garden, but I was desperate with the pain. She’d heard about this fella all the way over there in Dungarvan. Fair play to her, she drove me all the way there, with me lying in the back seat, moaning like a rescue dog.

His name was Patrick, just like that online bookie, in fact I tried to lay a bet but he’d have none of it. This fella is called an osteopath, and he laid me on the couch and twisted and turned and massaged me until I felt like one of those rubber bands. Jaysus, what a difference. Without a single drug and just a coupla scoops I’m now moving around again. I wouldn’t be able for the blocks, but I’m on my feet, ready to two-step to Garth Brooks at Crokers.

And that got me thinking about the different types of doctors, the ones with the PhDs and the medical ones. Sure what would your man with the PhD know about people getting sick from the pylon dust? Peig scares the shite outta me with her talk of breast cancer and stuff, but she always gives me the links, even showing that men can get breast cancer from pylons. What?

Now, I’ve been a Fianna Failure all my life, but walked away from the party when Biffo took over cos it was getting like the Sopranos with all these heavies walkin around doing dodgy deals. And then of course The Crash came and we blamed everybody we could point at, forgetting it was us who took out the credit card and bought all that useless shite we didn’t need, in between the holidays to Majorca. I wanted the FF boys to do something to restore my confidence because sure, even if you don’t like the cute hoors, they be the only ones strong enough to stand up to the Blueshirts. To be sure, the independent TDs do feck all, just claiming every allowance they can get their grubby paws on.

I heard on the FF grapevine (stupid feckin expression, sure, Marvin Gaye was no Irishman, that’s clear) that they will be callin for a moratorium on the pylons. That sounds like cute election spin to me and I’ll believe it when I see it cos I wouldn’t be buying a donkey from your man Me-Haul. I also see on their website that they be asking for Dr. Graham Roberts, who is a proper doctor, to be included on the Panel with your wan the Judge. Now to that I give the thumbs-up:

We need a proper doctor to be on the Panel. Not someone with a PhD in rat’s bollocks, but someone who knows loads about Leukaemia and Pylonaemia and all those other horrible cancers, especially breast cancer in men, for fecks sake.. Eirgrid didn’t have any proper doctors when they thought up the Plan, so sure, what would they know? And the way your man Rabbitte is looking at the moment, he’d be needing a proper doctor too. If you can’t take the heat Pat, get the feck outta the kitchen.